Warner: Take a look at this Facebook thing

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA, asked the Federal Trade Commission this week to take a close look at Facebook's experiment on users' emotional responses.

The company revealed that it tweaked news feeds for hundreds of thousands of users, including more positive or negative stories, then looked at subsequent posts to see what sort of effect this had.

This revelation has not been met with widespread support from Facebook users.

Warner's office said he wants "the agency to explore the potential ramifications of the experiment, and to consider questions about what, if any, oversight would be appropriate for behavioral studies conducted by social media platforms. Sen. Warner also asked for an opinion on whether best practices should be developed and enforced by the industry, or by the FTC."

Said Warner, in a statement: " “I don’t know if Facebook’s manipulation of users’ news feeds was appropriate or not. But I think many consumers were surprised to learn they had given permission by agreeing to Facebook’s terms of service. And I think the industry could benefit from a conversation about what are the appropriate rules of the road going forward.”

UPDATE: Robert Sarvis, the Libertarian candidate for Warner's U.S. Senate seat, used the Facebook issue today to blast the senator for his past support of various surveilance programs.

Said Sarvis:

Senator Mark Warner said more about Facebook's impact on users' privacy than he has said in an entire year about the federal government's vast surveillance program collecting and storing innocent Americans' phone calls and emails.

If Mark Warner truly cares about privacy, he should apologize for his votes to reauthorize the misnamed "Patriot" Act and the FISA Amendments Act, his votes against reforms to better protect our civil liberties, and his votes to keep Americans in the dark about the government's mass surveillance programs.

Sarvis then ticked off a number of Warner's votes from the past several years. I sent that list to Warner's office, and they didn't point out any inaccuracies in the list, which you can read in full on Sarvis' Facebook page.

Warner spokewoman Beth Wanamaker sent over this statement:

“As a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Warner has worked to strengthen protections for privacy and civil liberties while also making sure that our intelligence community can continue keeping us safe. The Intel committee passed his bipartisan amendments to empower FISA oversight by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent, respected outside body, as well as to allow the FISA court to consult outside experts on privacy and civil liberties.”